Blue Current Brewery

Our Sake

Blue Current Junmai Ginjo is cold-brewed and fermented using highly polished rice and pure coastal Maine water to create a light, fruity and refined sake. Serve Blue Current sake chilled with anything you’d pair with a nice crisp white wine, such as seafood, chicken, pork, pasta, and salads. Our sake is vegan, sulfite-free and gluten-free.

We use all natural ingredients:
– Koshi Hikari rice grown in California and polished to 60% for purity
– Natural spring water from the coast of Maine
– Historic #7 yeast strain for slightly sweet fragrance
– Made by hand in the finest traditional cedar-lined koji room

Our sake’s taste is exceptionally refined & smooth, uniting floral notes with hints of banana and vanilla. You can enjoy it like a fine white wine: slightly chilled, in a wine glass. Our alcohol by volume is 14%.

Blue Current’s premium saké is for sale in the U.S., in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, and now in the UK, with plans for further expansion in the U.S., and abroad.

Award-Winning Sake

Our Blue Current Junmai Ginjo was awarded a gold medal at the 2016 London Saké Challenge, held at Harrods in London in August. A jury of the world’s best saké professionals from the Saké Sommelier Association recognized and rewarded the most outstanding premium sakés from around the world. Blue Current’s junmai ginjo was one of only two American-brewed sakés to be honored the top prize. We are thrilled as such a young brewery to be given a gold medal alongside some Japanese breweries that have been brewing for more than an average of 160 years. Four of them were founded before 1800.

The London Saké Challenge invites certified saké sommeliers from all over the world, including Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Korea, the United States, and other countries, to evaluate each saké individually for taste, bouquet, and bottle design. The bottles are covered to allow for a “blind” test. Afterwards, the sakés are judged for label elegance and packaging.

How We Make Sake

Blue Current Brewery brews sake (sometimes called “rice wine”) in two batches per month with up to three batches fermenting at a time. Brewing is conducted

under the close personal attention of our master brewers using modern techniques seamlessly combined with traditional brewing methods to ensure consistently excellent taste, whether packaged in bottles or draft kegs.

Our rice is grown in California, shipped to Minnesota to be milled, and then delivered to Maine.

To process the rice it is washed and soaked in large tubs, then drained.

A small batch of rice is then steamed and the inoculated with aspergillus oryzae (a specialized mold spore knows as “koji-kin” in Japanese).

The rice is put into a sauna-like koji room for two days to allow the mold to propagate and create the “koji.”

Additional batches of rice are steamed and gradually added to a fermentation tank with the koji to start the fermentation process.

Fermentation happens at around 50oF over six weeks.

The “mash” is then filter-pressed (much like cider) and polish filtered before being bottled or kegged.

Pasteurization is achieved by using a heat exchanger for a short period of time.

The bottles and kegs are then capped and aged (or conditioned) for an additional four weeks before being packed for distribution.

From the Coast of Maine

Blue Current Brewery hand crafts sake in small batches using traditional methods and the finest natural ingredients. Maine’s pure water and the abundance of cool ocean breezes make Kittery a perfect spot to cold-brew premium American sake.

Shop

Buy Our Sake

*California and Alabama have a 3 bottle minimum.

Blue Current sake is also available at retailers and restaurants throughout Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Please feel free to reach out if you’ve got a suggestion for a restaurant or shop that should stock us.

Brewery Shwag

Want to show your Blue Current Brewery pride? Take a look at our shwag store over on Zazzle – and stock up on hoodies, magnets, and even flip flops! Don’t see quite what you want, let us know and we’ll customize it for you!

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Who We Are

Born in the Garage

Blue Current Brewery started in a garage, based on a love of home brewing and a small obsession with anything Japanese. Our founder and master brewer/toji, Dan Ford, had spent time in Japan and had fallen in love with sake – the taste, the craft, the ritual. Having grown up home-brewing beers and later graduating to hard ciders and meads, Dan found a you-brew-it sake kit and the experimenting began.

This nano-brewery approach allowed the Dan and his friends to experiment and learn in short and fast sprints and to learn the rhythms and pace of the brewing cyle. In the meantime, the idea of a becoming a larger-scale sake brewery seemed to have enough traction and the quest for a brewing space (away from the now-toddling twins…), sources for materials and equipment, and furthering their personal knowledge of the art and craft of sake were launched.

Extensive Training

Dan confirmed he has a natural palate for and intense knowledge of sake by becoming one of the fewer than 100 certified “Advanced Sake Professional” (think master sommelier of sake) from the non-profit organization The Sake Education Council.

Expansion

Fast forward another year and a bit (because who wants to rehash all those false-start locations and government shut-downs) and Blue Current Brewery officially moved out of the garage and and created a new brew space here in Kittery, Maine. We had a great winter brewing season in 2015, testing out all of our shiny new equipment and refining our formula. We’ve received all the necessary approvals of our formula and our labels and are now permitted to bottle.

The Next Chapter

As of the start of this 2015 summer season, we are bottling our junmai ginjo sake while we make arrangements for distribution here in Maine and onward. We’ve also got a limited edition special tokobetsu junmai that we should be able to bottle before the end of summer. Our custom crop of yamada nishiki rice has been planted in Arkansas and we’re very excited to craft a limited edition special tokobetsu junmai ginjo after the fall harvest. As soon as we start pressing again, we’ll be packaging our kasu for sale (though the cows will still get their fair share). In the fall we’ll also be setting up for online ordering of our sakes and kasu products. Be sure to “like” us on Facebook to stay up with our brews and releases.

About Dan

Dan comes from a solid background in financial services. Pair this business acumen with his passion for brewing, and sprinkle in his love for the taste, the craft and the ritual of sake and you have our founder and master brewer. Dan has obtained both the Advanced Sake Professional (ASP) and Certified Sake Professional (CSP) certifications by the Sake Education Council, Tokyo, Japan.

How To Enjoy Our Sake

If you are new to sake or just to ours, we suggest you think of Blue Current sake like white wine – say, a nice pinot grigio. Serve our sake chilled and in a wine glass. You can store opened sake bottles in the fridge and enjoy them over several days.

In The News

Washington Avenue in Portland’s East End has seen a dining and beverage boom over the past couple of years. There’s barbecue, a wine bar, juicery, gin distillery, brewery, plus the old guard, Silly’s and Tu Casa. Two months ago Izakaya Minato entered the delicious fray, offering Japanese specialties one might find at a Tokyo gastropub…. Alden has plenty of experience with sake and trained the staff to assist diners with the choices. A three-sake sampler might be the way to go for the uninitiated, enabling a side-by-side comparison. A variety of sakes are available, from the basic junmai to the premium daiginjo and even the Maine-made Blue Current ginjo. >> Read the full article

Tasty and trendy, Izakaya Minato on inner Washington has diners lining up for a new kind of urban experience. Washington Avenue’s star continues to rise with the arrival of casual-yet-cool, Japan-inspired Izakaya Minato. Like many of the latest hot spots on The Hill, Izakaya Minato fills up quickly, so go early if you want to get in at all… Or try the wines, local draft, or a dizzying array of sakes. For those of us who aren’t sake sommeliers, try the Sake Sampler ($14), three 1.5-oz. pours served on a wooden board. We’re happy to discover our favorite, the Blue Current Junmai Ginjo, is made right here in Maine. >> Read the full article

Blue Current Brewery, the only sake brewery in Maine, is based in Kittery on Route 1, tucked back away from the road. From the outside, you have no idea of the magic that is happening inside the nondescript warehouse. Sake is one of the hardest beverages in the world to brew and is practiced at the nano level. It takes years to learn the craft and few are able to master the skill of sake brewing. Alumnus Dan Ford ’88, described by all who know him to have immense perseverance, not only mastered the craft, but has become and award-winning sake brewer. >> Read the full article (see page 36)

As the popularity of Japanese sake is increasing around the world, the spotlight is shining on a local American sake brewery. In 2016, at an international tasting hosting a number of long-established craft sake breweries, an American man was awarded the gold medal for his Junmai ginjo. The man had lost his job after the Lehman shock and was determined to make sake. >> Read the full article in English (Original Article – in Japanese, requires log-in)

(New Hampshire Magazine, March 2017)
It’s more versatile than you might think, especially the stuff made at Kittery’s Blue Current Brewery: It’s time to explore the world of sake, the national drink of Japan. It’s wine-like in its complexity, but made from rice and brewed like a beer. Maine resident Dan Ford, while looking for a business opportunity, decided to pursue his love of sake and built a sake brewery in Kittery, Maine (bluecurrent.net). To his credit, after only a year or so into the process, he received a gold medal at the London Sake Challenge, even besting Japanese makers at their own game. He knew where he wanted to go with flavor profiles, and he’s now one of only 100 certified sake professionals (CSP) in the world. >> Read the full article

(Down East magazine, November 2016)
In 180 paces (we counted), you can traverse the nucleus of Kittery’s snug Foreside district, passing eight restaurants, a whole-animal butcher, an import market of Euro delicacies, a dim craft-cocktail bar, and a coffee shop with the best vibe (and crullers) for 50 miles in any direction. None of it was there in 1986, when Michael Landgarten took over Bob’s Clam Hut on Route 1… >> Read the full article

(Winerabble, September 29, 2016)
Blue Current, a saké brewery in Kittery, Maine, picked up a gold medal at the 2016 London Saké Challenge, held at Harrods in London in August. A jury of the world’s best saké professionals from the Saké Sommelier Association recognized and rewarded the most outstanding premium sakés from around the world. Blue Current’s junmai ginjo was one of only two American-brewed sakés to be honored the top prize. >> Read the full article

(Winerabble, September 9, 2016)
These interviews began as a way to introduce you to interesting people in the wine industry. Now, the interviews are broadening to include craft spirits, saké, beer and food as well. For many, the journey is not only intriguing but often quite an adventure. These talented individuals are what make these industries what they are today so follow this series to meet this group of passionate people who have dedicated their lives to their passion. >> Read the full article

As I sip bright, clear Junmai Ginjo sake from a small glass made just for the purpose, each side sporting a small indentation just right for my fingers, Blue Current Brewery’s Dan Ford instructs me on how to appreciate the experience. We bite into crisp grapes or sharp cheese, then sip some more of the fragrant, crisp rice brew, each bite changing the flavor. I taste hints of banana with the grape, then vanilla against the nutty cheese. Afterwards, we tour the expansive Kittery warehouse, including the sweet and earthy-smelling cedar-lined koji room where the milled rice is fermented. >> Read the full article

(Portland Press Herald, December 6, 2015)
The premium rice wine, made in Kittery, is a lighter alternative to grape-based wines. Dan Ford jokes that his Blue Current sake is made with Maine ingredients because the water in it comes from Maine. The rice comes from California (and is milled in Minnesota), but Ford hopes one day that will change, if Maine farmers ever succeed in growing rice as a viable crop in New England. Nevertheless, Blue Current’s Junmai Ginjo is made in Maine, a complex process that takes six to eight weeks to finish one batch. >> Read the full article

(Small Business Association, November 2015)
Blue Current Brewery, maker of handcrafted sake in Kittery, Maine, is nominated as Small Business Success Story of the year by Seacoast SCORE chapter 185 of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Daniel Ford developed a passion for sake while working in Japan in the financial information technology business between 2005 and 2008. After losing his job in the financial crisis, he decided to turn this passion for sake into a new career. Ford felt certain the pure water and cool weather of coastal Maine, which is similar to Japan, would provide the perfect environment for brewing sake in small batches from natural ingredients. He believes the United States is a huge untapped market for high-quality, domestically produced sake. He explains Blue Current is much more than a beverage to go with sushi. “Think of it as a white wine. It’s like a nice Pinot Grigio, but without the sulfites,” Ford explains. >> Read the full article

First came boutique wineries. Then microbreweries and craft distilleries. Now Japanese sake aficionados are hoping to transform the so-called “rice wine” into the next artisan alcohol-of-the-moment in the U.S. Dan Ford, whose Maine-made sake is just hitting the market, has bet his retirement savings that consumers will be sold on his premium sake once they give it a try. “We see it as a market that’s untapped,” said Ford, who developed a taste for sake while working in Japan, then later returned there to learn from a sensei, or teacher, before launching Blue Current Brewery, one of about a dozen craft producers operating — or gearing up to — in North America. >> Read the full article

Brewers in America are discovering a new world ripe with potential, and these futurists are bringing playfulness and innovation to an industry steeped in tradition—with an expected dedication to sourcing ingredients locally. While ‘rice wine’ often accompanies sake descriptions, the process is more akin to brewing beer. Four main grades differentiate its quality, yet most Americans have only tasted bottom shelf sake, served hot or cold with their hibachi. >> Read the full article

Having worked at The Urban Grape for two years now, I have learned that all of our clients have one universal desire: fresh, local products whenever possible. For craft beer and spirits we have always been ready and happy to oblige. We also offer locally made wines and many with Boston and New England connections! In this way, we are able to offer great options for every palate with a few exceptions: by necessity, location based wine (Bordeaux, Rioja, Champagne, etc) and sake. There is no law (written or otherwise) stating that sake must come from any particular place. Japan has about 1250 different breweries (kura) across forty-seven prefectures, all of which brew some sake. In the US, there are between ten and twenty kura, some dating back as far as 1908 but most built within the last thirty years. The oldest surviving US kura is in Hawaii and the next few opened in southern California and Oregon. Very recently, sake kura have begun to show up outside of the Pacific Rim in places like Texas, Minnesota, North Carolina, Norway, Brazil, Canada, Australia, and now finally we have one on the verge of opening up in New England! >> Read the full article

Dan Ford said he is so close to opening Maine’s first ever sake brewery that he can almost taste it – but he’s looking for a little help from the Seacoast community and beyond to see him over the finish line. Ford is the owner of Blue Current Brewery, which he hopes will begin producing its first bottles of sake in time to toast in the New Year. While much of the equipment has been purchased or built, there are still several pieces of equipment that still need to be procured. >> Read the full article

(NBC WCSH6 Portland, October 1, 2014)
At least one Mainer is excited about it being World Sake Day — Dan Ford, the founder and brewmaster at Maine’s first sake microbrewery. Blue Current Brewery is the Ford Family’s future. When Dan lost his finance job in Boston a few years ago, he and his wife Phyllis decided brewing sake would be their next chapter. Sinking all of his retirement money and life savings into this auto shop turned brewery, Ford is excited to introduce Mainers to locally made sake. >> Read the full article

(Fill the Steins @ Bangor Daily News, September 26, 2014)
Maine has a rich history of microbreweries dating back decades and stretching the entire length of the state. But the latest brewery opening in Kittery in the next few months will not be serving up pale ales and porters, instead it is positioning itself to become a global leader in another beverage, the Japanese staple of sake. >> Read the full article

(Eater Maine, September 12, 2014)
Want to help Maine’s first sake brewery get off the ground? Blue Current Brewery in Kittery is “looking to raise $33,000 to ship the rice from Minnesota, to get bottling and pasteurizing machines to speed things up, and to help with the marketing and packaging expenses.” In an extensive video and write-up, owner/brewer Dan Ford makes a case for why his campaign deserves your funding. Is it strong enough? >> Read the full article

(Outside Magazine, March 2014)
In the past year, the number of commercial makers of craft sake in the U.S. has doubled. The reason for the boom: American rice has improved, and brewers, long stifled by a lack of industrial rice steamers and other traditional equipment, have gotten creative with how they make it. … in the months ahead, look for Asheville’s Blue Kudzu, as well as Blue Current in Kittery Point, Maine, to join Texas Sake Company and SakeOne in bottling their wares. >> Read the full article

(The Restaurant Brokers, February 26 2014)
The brewpub segment is getting a little crowded. That could explain the new interest in sake making. Given how readily U.S. restaurant patrons embrace most things Japanese—consider the nonstop popularity of sushi restaurants, the current ramen noodle shop craze and the emergence of large-format izakaya concepts as hip dining and drinking destinations—it’s no wonder the idea of restaurants built around house-brewed sake seems ready to catch on. It’s a wide-open market where operators who missed out on the craft beer-driven brew pub phenomenon can get in on the ground floor of what might be the next big beverage trend. >> Read the full article

(Portsmouth Herald, January 26, 2014)
He fell in love with the rich, textured taste of sake when he lived in Japan eight years ago, much as he came to appreciate the Japanese people and their culture. Now he is turning that passion into his future livelihood, with the opening this spring of a sake microbrewery, Blue Current Brewery. Ford follows in the footsteps of only a small number of people in America. Sake microbreweries have opened in Austin, Texas, Minneapolis, Minn., and Asheville, N.C. But the industry is still in its infancy in the United States. That was one of the factors that attracted Ford to begin manufacturing sake at their soon-to-open Route 1 Bypass location. >> Read the full article

There’s a new micro brewer in Maine. However, instead of beer, Blue Current Brewery (BCB) in Kittery is brewing sake. And, once the company has all its equipment in place, it will be the first sake brewer east of Texas and the largest in the nation, according to a press release from the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development. BCB will take its place as one of seven breweries nationwide and will become one of only two that brew, bottle and distribute micro brewed sake. Sake is an intensely complex rice-based spirit and “is the most difficult thing to brew in the world, hands down,” said BCB founder Dan Ford. He contends that the intellectual, technical and financial aid he has received thus far was primarily gained from his partnership with Gov. LePage Account Executive Kristine Schuman. >>Read the full article

(Beverage Media Group, September 26, 2013)
Most of us are familiar with that hot, musky-smelling, cloudy drink served in teacups at sushi bars and sometimes called, erroneously, “rice wine.” In other words, most of us have had bad sake. But finally, Americans are learning to love the good stuff. Imports of high-end sake from Japan are escalating, and countless sake-focused bars and restaurants in cities across the country are carrying hundreds of bottles each. Savvy gourmands are pairing sake with cheese and chocolate. Mixologists are making sake cocktails. Portland, Ore., has hosted a three summers in a row. >>Read the full article

(NPR’s “The Salt”, July 16, 2013)
Most of us are familiar with that hot, musky-smelling, cloudy drink served in teacups at sushi bars and sometimes called, erroneously, “rice wine.” In other words, most of us have had bad sake. But finally, Americans are learning to love the good stuff. Imports of high-end sake from Japan are escalating, and countless sake-focused bars and restaurants in cities across the country are carrying hundreds of bottles each. Savvy gourmands are pairing sake with cheese and chocolate. Mixologists are making sake cocktails. Portland, Ore., has hosted a three summers in a row. >>Read the full article

(Portland Press Herald, February 27, 2013)
It’s a quiet evening in February, and I’m sitting in Miyake in the Old Port, getting a crash course in sake from Dan Ford and John Sygowski. They start me off with a glass of Ippongi Denshin Rin Daiginjo, an aromatic sake with notes of lychee and pear. The rice used to make a daiginjo, I learn, has been highly polished. Fifty percent or more of the kernel has been milled away so that there is mostly starch remaining, and that means better flavor. A glass or two later, I try a namazake, an unpasteurized sake. (Most sake is pasteurized twice.) “A lot of the flavor’s in the front of your mouth,” Dan said. “It’s sort of bright, and then just fades. That’s namazake.” >> Read the full article

A Most Heartfelt Thank You

Special thanks to our Kickstarter supporters! You all have made it possible for us to bring the brewery to life! We are overwhelmed with the amount of supporters we have and we are excited to keep the momentum moving forward. Cheers, kampai, domo, and thank you all!

Food Pairings

It’s pretty simple – just like white wine, Blue Current sake pairs nicely with fish, shellfish, chicken, and other light refreshing foods. (May we suggest some fresh Maine lobster?)Even better than wine, sake is gluten-free and contains no sulfites or other preservatives that are said to contribute to hangovers, as well as other health concerns. Additionally, sake contains amino acids, has been shown to increase good cholesterol levels and blood flow. Of course, sake should be consumed with the same cautions as other alcoholic drinks.